1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures of this application relate generally to methods of offering goods for sale. More specifically, this application is directed to the field of the sales of products upon which regional restrictions are placed.
2. Description of the Related Art
Systems and methods for automatically configuring and pricing products have been in existence for many years. Normally, some sort of computing arrangement—either simple or complex—has been used. Some of these conventional systems are adapted to automatically display prices, and in some instances are able to concurrently calculate a total product price as the product is being configured. Where the particular product has a plurality of possible options which affect price, systems have been developed which will properly adjust the price when different options are selected and deselected by a customer.
Other systems have been developed which will automatically display the impact the options have on dimensions and other variables. Other systems enable the user to select options while a three-dimensional representation of the resulting product is displayed.
These conventional systems have proved useful in many respects, but have their limitations. One limiting aspect, is that the prior art systems do not account for location-specific requirements. Using the aircraft industry as an example, different countries have different rules when it comes to offering an aircraft as a product. An aircraft seller may have numerous options it can provide. But different countries will require or ban some options because of native rules, regulations, and other location-based dictates. Because these dictates are not factored into the prior art automated product specification development processes, these processes, if used for products having regional requirements, will result in a noncompliant product. Dealing with the noncompliance can be overcome by adding further manual checks and balances to the process, e.g., having staff amend the automated specification after identifying the reason for noncompliance. But this adds significant time to the process as well as the likelihood of human error. And the customer may become frustrated with the additions of changes after already settling on a product configuration.
Because the prior art processes are not adapted to accommodate foreign regional rules, an otherwise seamless process is interrupted. Therefore, there is a need in the art for an automated process which is able to create a product specification which also adequately accommodates regional requirements.